Share What You Already Know: Cross-Language-Script Transfer and Alignment for Sentiment Detection in Code-Mixed Data

Code-switching entails mixing multiple languages. It is an increasingly occurring phenomenon in social media texts. Usually, code-mixed texts are written in a single script, even though the languages involved have different scripts. Pre-trained multilingual models primarily utilize the data in the native script of the language. In existing studies, the code-switched texts are utilized as they are. However, using the native script for each language can generate better representations of the text owing to the pre-trained knowledge. Therefore, a cross-language-script knowledge sharing architecture utilizing the cross attention and alignment of the representations of text in individual language scripts was proposed in this study. Experimental results on two different datasets containing Nepali-English and Hindi-English code-switched texts, demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method. The interpretation of the model using model explainability technique illustrates the sharing of language-specific knowledge between language-specific representations

NEHATE: Large-Scale Annotated Data Shedding Light on Hate Speech in Nepali Local Election Discourse

The use of social media during election campaigns has become increasingly popular. However, the unbridled nature of online discourse can lead to the propagation of hate speech, which has far-reaching implications for the democratic process. Natural Language Processing (NLP) techniques are being used to counteract the spread of hate speech and promote healthy online discourse. Despite the increasing need for NLP techniques to combat hate speech, research on low-resource languages such as Nepali is limited, posing a challenge to the realization of the United Nations' Leave No One Behind principle, which calls for inclusive development that benefits all individuals and communities, regardless of their backgrounds or circumstances. To bridge this gap, we introduce NEHATE, a large-scale manually annotated dataset of hate speech and its targets in Nepali local election discourse. The dataset comprises 13,505 tweets, annotated for hate speech with further sub-categorization of hate speech into targets such as community, individual, and organization. Benchmarking of the dataset with various algorithms has shown potential for performance improvement. We have made the dataset publicly available at https://github.com/shucoll/NEHate to promote further research and development, while also contributing to the UN SDGs aimed at fostering peaceful, inclusive societies, and justice and strong institutions

War allegory in Narayan Wagle's Palpasa Café

This article examines the metafictional representations in Narayan Wagle's Palpasa Café (2008). The novel's metafictional elements depict the state of the Nepalese people during the Civil War. Wagle critiques the devastating consequences of the Civil War and how it affected the Nepali individuals' psyche. The study elucidates Wagle's use of metafiction as an indirect commentary on the political status quo. The study also uses allegory to explicate the metafictional elements in the novel in order to highlight Wagle's fictional critique. Allegory is elaborated in terms of paradox. Paradoxical allegory reveals the implicit metafictional authorial presence in the novel's narrative structure to accentuate the author's subjective voice. Such authorial presence is conveyed via insinuating self-reflexivity device which allows the author to intervene in his narrative fabric. The study mainly focuses on the authorial metafictional interference within the fictional text through paradoxical allegory. Both allegory and paradox have an interrelation with metafiction which unravels the author's relative perspective on the tragic consequences of the Nepalese Civil War

Indigenous knowledge and its implication for agricultural development and agricultural education: a case study of the Vedic tradition in Nepal

This dissertation is about the meaning and relevance, in today\u27s world, of indigenous knowledge, and particularly the traditional cosmologies and sacred beliefs that underly this knowledge. The case of Vedic knowledge in Nepal is studied to illustrate traditional agriculture within a cosmological framework and to provide an holistic, indigenous perspective on development with emphasis on sustainable, indigenous approaches to agriculture and related sectors in Nepal. Indigenous knowledge is defined from an indigenous perspective and an alternative, emic approach to understanding the role of indigenous knowledge in development and the synthesis of modern and indigenous knowledge systems is proposed. Implications are drawn for agricultural education philosophy in Nepal, and conclusions are reached and recommendations made for the global approach to indigenous knowledge in light of the indigenous perspective

Human-centered NLP Fact-checking: Co-Designing with Fact-checkers using Matchmaking for AI

A key challenge in professional fact-checking is its limited scalability in relation to the magnitude of false information. While many Natural Language Processing (NLP) tools have been proposed to enhance fact-checking efficiency and scalability, both academic research and fact-checking organizations report limited adoption of such tooling due to insufficient alignment with fact-checker practices, values, and needs. To address this gap, we investigate a co-design method, Matchmaking for AI, which facilitates fact-checkers, designers, and NLP researchers to collaboratively discover what fact-checker needs should be addressed by technology and how. Our co-design sessions with 22 professional fact-checkers yielded a set of 11 novel design ideas. They assist in information searching, processing, and writing tasks for efficient and personalized fact-checking; help fact-checkers proactively prepare for future misinformation; monitor their potential biases; and support internal organization collaboration. Our work offers implications for human-centered fact-checking research and practice and AI co-design research

Testing news trustworthiness in an online public sphere: a case study of The Economist\u27s news report covering the riots in Xinjiang, China

This paper explores the news trustworthiness and media credibility of The Economist’s news report on 9 July 2009, and the communicative roles of 846 readers’ responses. Theoretically guided by news translation and cultural resistance and the online public sphere, we applied online field observation and discourse analysis and achieved two main findings: First, although the news report covered the Xinjiang riots with comprehensive and attractive details, it violated the core journalism value of media credibility and journalistic objectivity by providing misleading pictures and significant unreliable and biased coverage. Second, the major communicative roles of the online readers’ responses generally match Dahlberg’s six conditions of an ideal online public sphere, which is still challenging but promising to realize

Cultural conception and silent acceptance of stereotypes : a critical study on nepalese women's situation

Master's thesis in global studies. School of Mission and Theology, May 201